9 March 2026

Have you seen your first dandelion flower of 2026?

Probably not. My earliest photo record of a dandelion was taken on 3 April, shown above. My photo date might not match First Blooming date in Pittsburgh, though, because I rarely take photos of dandelions until they go to seed.

Dandelions in North America are an invasive species, Taraxacum officinale, originally brought on the Mayflower for salad greens. They spread across the continent because their seeds disperse on the wind, each dangling from a tiny parachute of fluff called a pappus (plural is pappi).

In Japan there is a native dandelion species, the Korean dandelion (Taraxacum platycarpum), that grows in rural places as well as densely urban spaces where it finds refuge in temple parks among the high rises. A recent study found that the urban dandelion seeds have evolved to float shorter distances than their rural counterparts.

The volumes of the pappi—the parachutelike structures that allow seeds to float away—in the rural dandelions were more than twice as large as those in the urban plants, the team found. That may be because seeds that travel beyond their small fields [in the city] die on their perilous city journeys, making the energy investment in a bigger parachute less worthwhile.

— Science Magazine: Urban dandelions have evolved to stay close to home. That’s bad news

The study also found that their urban dandelions are 10 times less genetically diverse than their rural counterparts, presumably because they were all pollinating their close neighbors.

In Japan this is a problem because the dandelion is native. The study suggests methods to link isolated populations and reverse their potential demise.

Meanwhile in North America our invasive dandelions are doing just fine, though I wonder if they’ve evolved shorter fluff in dense urban settings such as New York City.

Read more in Science Magazine: Urban dandelions have evolved to stay close to home. That’s bad news.

I’ll let you know when I see the first one blooming in Pittsburgh.

24 December 2025

In winter, holly (Ilex) shows off its evergreen leaves and bright red berries just in time for Christmas traditions, decorations and songs.

The Holly and the Ivy (Cecil_James_Sharp_1911, embedded from Wikimedia Commons)

Holly is so beautiful that we often use it as landscape plant, but the real purpose behind that beauty is to attract wildlife to eat the berries. Though holly berries are mildly poisonous to humans and dogs, they are readily eaten by deer, squirrels and many birds, especially cedar waxwings and American robins.

Cedar waxwings can strip a holly tree or hedge of all its berries in a matter of minutes. They start at the top and work their way to the bottom, then to fallen fruit on the ground.

Large holly trees, 40-50 feet tall, can take a flock all day. In between feasting forays they wait and watch in nearby bare trees.

American robins cannot compete with 50 to 100 cedar waxwings so they hope to eat their fill before the waxwings arrive.

Have you planted a holly tree but it doesn’t bear fruit? Here are some reasons why.

Fun Fact

Holly leaves are more prickly at the bottom of the tree than at the top. Thorns keep mammals from plundering the low hanging fruit so the birds can get first crack at the berries and spread the seeds far and wide.

28 November 2025

Do you have cranberry sauce left over today? When I was growing up we had sauce-shaped-like-a-can and it was always leftover. Half the family was polite about eating it on Thanksgiving but would not eat it later.

It doesn’t have to look like a can. This sauce gives a hint of where it came from.

In the wild, cranberries (Vaccinium oxycoccos) grow in bogs, scattered among other plants such as sphagnum moss.

Commercial cranberry growers plant them in a monoculture …

… inside diked areas that can be kept moist and flooded later.

At harvest time they shake the plants and flood the field. The cranberries float.

Harvesters use booms to gather them in.

Transferred from truck to truck and then to market.

And that’s how they get from bog to table.